Following the introduction of the Breakthrough Mode in the 2.13 update, promotions can be done up to 10 times (11 cards in total). The elite rank of a card can be seen as a roman numeral in the top left corner. "III" means it's at the third elite rank; this goes up to X. Fully promoted cards are often referred to as "EV10" or "E10", and this applies to other ranks as well. Cards that have never been promoted don't show anything in that corner, but are referred to as "normal" on the card's interface and are sometimes referred to as "E0", or "base".

Only characters who have been elited to E7, have reached LV 50 and have gone through the Breakthrough Mode can be promoted to E10.

You can promote a character with an extra copy of the card. This destroys the extra copy and causes it to go up an elite rank, but does not alter the character otherwise, including the level. It does not matter whether you level or promote a character first, they'll still arrive at the same maximum stats as dictated by their base stats.

Characters who are always available at the start of the game, as well as characters unlocked from Challenge Mode or an WBID can be promoted directly on their card interface. Obtaining a character who needs to be unlocked in Challenge Mode or a WBID account from a pack will not unlock them for direct promotions.

Before Injustice 2.0, the maximum promotion a card could receive was 5, or "V".

Before Update 2.13, the maximum promotion a card could receive was 7 (although this promotion level is still very common).

Prior to update 2.13, hackers in Online Battles can be seen with cards at Elite X and level 99, although their stats are still capped at Elite VII level 50. This should be distinguished between characters who have been elited to EX through Breakthrough, as their stats would still be higher, and not capped at E7.

If you maxed out a character before, and if you received a free copy of that characters, the extra cards amount will be listed despite no promotion bar will show up.